MPD releases details on stats investigation

An investigation into Mobile police officers misreporting crimes found more instances than originally thought, according to a department press release.

The investigation, which began on June 24 and looked at three months of reports, found 108 property crimes were misreported. The MPD-issued press release detailed the findings of the internal audit, which was self-initiated.

“Our investigators have determined that 108 of 3,203 reported property crimes were misclassified or downgraded for various reasons. The investigation revealed that of the 108 reports, 85 were from the First Precinct, three were from the Second Precinct, three were in the Third Precinct, 11 in the Fourth Precinct, and six in the Fifth Precinct,” the release states.

Calls to the MPD were not returned. The press release did say the department corrected its stats with the FBI.

On June 24, the MPD announced they were conducting an internal audit of at least the previous three months of burglaries because some were reported incorrectly in the First Precinct.

The precinct, which covers downtown, did not have any automobile burglaries for the past 35 days when the stats were examined, Public Information Officer Ashley Rains said, which seemed off since the area has a high concentration of cars, homes and businesses.

Chief of Police Micheal Williams explained an instance of a misreporting earlier.

“One report of criminal mischief showed a homeowner reported someone had kicked in a door, but nothing was taken,” Williams said. “It should have been reported as burglary.”

Rains said of the seven misreported burglaries initially found, one officer wrote the majority of them. Incidentally, he is no longer with MPD. Rains said he left shortly before the reporting was discovered.

Capt. Eddie Patrick oversaw the First Precinct during the time examined.

About The Author

Rob Holbert is co-publisher and managing editor of Lagniappe, Mobile’s independent newspaper. Rob helped found the newspaper after a career that started as a police reporter and columnist at the Mississippi Press in Pascagoula. He followed that with a stint as a deputy press secretary for then-U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in Washington, D.C.
After leaving Capitol Hill, Rob worked ghost-writing opinion articles for publication in some of the nation’s largest newspapers. From 1999 through Aug. 2010 he was the faculty adviser for the University of South Alabama student newspaper, The Vanguard, and in 2002 started Lagniappe with his business partner Ashley Trice. The paper now prints 30,000 copies every week and is distributed at more than 1,300 locations around Mobile and Baldwin Counties.
According to Scarborough Research, Lagniappe now has more than 80,000 readers each week, with close to a quarter of that coming online. The paper began publishing weekly at the beginning of April 2014.